Amie Brunkow thought her time tracking system was working just fine.
The online platform she used at Alta Vista Meat Co., her custom meat processing facility, was adequate. Employees tracked their hours, payroll got processed, and business moved forward. Nothing was obviously broken.
Then she switched to OnTheClock.
"When we switched over, I didn't realize how many challenges I'd been having with the other one," she said.
That's the thing about a system you've lived with long enough — the frustrations stop feeling like frustrations; they just feel like work.
Adding employees, removing former ones, managing turnover, updating records — none of it was impossible before. It was just slower and more frustrating than it needed to be. Each task only consumed a few extra minutes, but those minutes added up. More importantly, they became expected. The software wasn't helping her manage the business as much as she was managing the software.
As it turns out, Amie's experience wasn't unique. We heard variations of the same story from businesses in completely different industries facing completely different challenges.
Three Businesses. Three Very Different Problems. One Realization.
We recently spoke with three OnTheClock customers — a meat processor, a nonprofit housing organization, and a wedding dress keepsake company. Their businesses have almost nothing in common. What they share is the moment they realized their old approach to tracking employee hours was costing them more time, money, and frustration than they thought.
‘This person says they clocked in at 8:15. I didn't see them ‘til 8:25.’
Laura Nickel, director of operations at HFCC, Inc., a nonprofit housing organization, was tracking employee hours the way many small organizations do: spreadsheets, paper, and trust.
It worked until it didn't.
Hours went unrecorded, time sheets went missing, and managers spent chunks of their day chasing down information that should have been automatic. And when attendance questions came up — which they always do — the answers depended on who remembered what.
"You don't get the, 'This person says they clocked in at 8:15. Well, I didn't see them till 8:25,'" Nickel said.
Without reliable records, those conversations lack a clear resolution. Managers are left relying on memory instead of facts.
When HFCC moved to OnTheClock, Nickel wasn't looking for a complex solution. She wanted something employees would actually use.
"The ease of use was a major factor,” she said. “The fact that everyone could do it on their phones was beneficial."
Clock-in records replaced memory, attendance questions got answers instead of arguments, and the hours her team had been spending on manual tracking were redirected to more productive work.
‘I Can Go In and Adjust Hours Pretty Easily’
BreAnne Servoss, production manager at Unbox the Dress — a company that transforms wedding dresses into keepsakes — will tell you plainly: employees forget to clock in and out. It happens.
The question she cared about wasn't how to prevent every mistake. It was how hard it would be to fix them.
"I'm able to go in pretty easily and adjust hours if they need them adjusted," she said.
That flexibility matters more than it sounds. When an employee forgets to clock in for an entire shift, reconstructing their hours shouldn't require an investigation. When a supervisor asks about a discrepancy from two weeks ago, the answer should take minutes, not an afternoon.
"That makes it so easy when I have a question from my supervisor about any hour discrepancies,” Servoss said.
And when an employee can't clock in at all, Servoss doesn't have to figure it out alone.
"There have been multiple times where an employee will come to me and say, 'I can't clock in,'" she said. “Live chat support is almost immediate."
Even the best software occasionally requires support. What separates good companies is how quickly they respond when customers need help.
‘I Thought It Was Going to Be a Headache. It Was Not.’
Back at Alta Vista Meat Co., Amie Brunkow had one more hurdle after switching platforms: payroll.
She'd been paying an accountant to handle it, and taking that task on herself felt risky because payroll errors aren't just inconvenient; they affect people's livelihoods and come with tax implications.
"I was so nervous about switching over and taking over that responsibility," she said. "I thought it was going to be a headache or scary, and it was not. Doing payroll with OnTheClock has been so easy."
When time tracking and payroll live in the same system, hours flow directly into paychecks. There's no exporting spreadsheets, manually re-entering employee hours, or comparing one report to another to ensure everything matches. The information is already there, which means payroll becomes less about data entry and more about simply reviewing and approving the numbers.
Less manual entry, fewer reconciliation headaches, and — maybe most importantly for someone who was genuinely nervous about this — less room for things to go wrong.
"I'm able to get so much done for a fraction of the cost of what I thought it would be," she said.
The Question Worth Asking
A meat processor, a nonprofit, and a wedding dress company. Different industries, workforces, and problems.
The question remains: How much is your current time tracking process actually costing you?
Not just in software fees — in the hours spent chasing missing punches, resolving attendance disputes, correcting payroll errors, and working around a system you've quietly learned to tolerate.
If the answer makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone. All three businesses featured here thought their systems were working well enough. Then they discovered how much time they were spending on manual processes, payroll preparation, attendance questions, and administrative work that simply didn't need to exist.
OnTheClock is free for 30 days. No credit card is required. See why more than 18,000 businesses trust OnTheClock for employee time tracking, scheduling, PTO management, and payroll at www.ontheclock.com.
Before joining OnTheClock, Herb served as Senior Editor of ACHR News and Editor in Chief of Engineered Systems Magazine, two of the most respected trade publications in the mechanical contracting and HVAC industry. Leading editorial operations at both outlets gave him a deep understanding of how field-based, hourly, and contractor workforces actually operate, which directly informs how he writes about time tracking and payroll.
At OnTheClock, Herb works alongside HR professionals, payroll administrators, and business owners daily, giving him firsthand insight into the compliance challenges and operational realities that small businesses navigate every week.